kludge

kludge
    n 1: a badly assembled collection of parts hastily assembled to
         serve some particular purpose (often used to refer to
         computing systems or software that has been badly put
         together)
    

kludge


   1. /kluhj/ n. Incorrect (though regrettably common) spelling of
   {kluge} (US). These two words have been confused in American usage
   since the early 1960s, and widely confounded in Great Britain since
   the end of World War II.

   2. [TMRC] A {crock} that works. (A long-ago Datamation article by
   Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted collection of
   poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.")

   3. v. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've kludged around it
   for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."

   This word appears to have derived from Scots kludge or kludgie for a
   common toilet, via British military slang. It apparently became
   confused with U.S. {kluge} during or after World War II; some Britons
   from that era use both words in definably different ways, but {kluge}
   is now uncommon in Great Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish
   differs in meaning from `kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses;
   a kludge is something no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated
   too closely with. Also, `kludge' is more widely known in British
   mainstream slang than `kluge' is in the U.S.
    

kludge

   <jargon> /kluhj/ (From the old Scots "kludgie" meaning an
   outside toilet) A Scottish engineering term for anything added
   in an ad hoc (and possibly unhygenic!) manner.  At some point
   during the Second World War, Scottish engineers met Americans
   and the meaning, spelling and pronunciation of kludge became
   confused with that of "{kluge}".

   The spelling "kludge" was apparently popularised by the
   "Datamation" cited below which defined it as "An ill-assorted
   collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing
   whole."

   The result of this tangled history is a mess; in 1993, many
   (perhaps even most) hackers pronounce the word /klooj/ but
   spell it "kludge" (compare the pronunciation drift of {mung}).
   Some observers consider this appropriate in view of its
   meaning.

   ["How to Design a Kludge", Jackson Granholme, Datamation,
   February 1962, pp. 30-31].

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1998-12-09)